"The man knew how to talk. I don't know why, but I thought that would save him. I thought that would solve the whole thing." – Roger Sterling

The death of Martin Luther King is not the first transformative national moment to have been captured on Mad Men. When John F. Kennedy died, the characters gathered around television screens in shared shock and sadness. Only Betty's compulsive behaviour, her apparent morbidity fixing her to the screen, stood out. This week, the reaction to the civil rights' leader's assassination is not so uniform. No doubt this difference shows the viewer something about a country riven by race. More apparently, though, it's a moment that digs into the complexities of some of the programme's central characters.

We learn about the murder of Dr King in Memphis from an indistinct holler at an awards bash. It's a moment couched in an odd humour as up until the point of revelation, the audience (the telly one) had been watching someone, at sufficient distance from the camera to keep his features obscured, do a mediocre impersonation of Paul Newman. After a member of the audience (the dramatic one) has screamed out that King is dead, the mood of the room shifts into shock, but once again we can laugh to ourselves at the organisers, who had hoped to keep the news quiet till the end of the ceremony; firstly because it shows a callous insensitivity and, secondly, because in the age of the smartphone, it sounds the same as the sea receiving an injunction from King Canute.

From that point we see how differently people respond. Many are upset, worried for their friends and family, and the queue for the phones is backed up. At the same time the organisers insist that they want to carry on with the awards. Jim Cutler, the newly introduced head of accounts at Cutler Gleason and Chaough, "like Roger Sterling with bad breath", displays both the cynicism of the ad man and the anxiety of the white New York liberal by reacting to the question "what happened?" with the answer "what do you think?" Meanwhile, over in the former-members-of-the-counterculture section, Abe senses the opportunity to make his name at the New York Times. He volunteers to run uptown on assignment for the Grey Lady, reporting from the streets of Harlem. In a tuxedo. Affable, shambling Abe has ambition, it is revealed (not only that but bourgeois taste in property too, as we later find out).

Don, naturally, is thrown into a meditation on the pointlessness of it all, staring morosely at flickering flames on the television, whiskey in hand. Mike Ginsberg's dad, a refugee from the horrors of the old world, pulls his blanket over his head. Upstate, Betty is using the moment to push her husband's ambitions and force her ex through the fire, literally. Henry Francis, meanwhile, reveals himself as a Republican with an interest in racial politics. "They're going to burn down the city," is his response to the death of Dr King and he assures Betty that, were he to run for state senator, there would be no walkabouts in Harlem, no attempts to engage with "radicals".

The next morning, in the SCDP offices we see the most dramatic and revealing encounter. Pete Campbell, as we know, has identified himself with African-Americans ever since he discovered the "negro dollar" was exploitable. But – and call me a cynic – he also found himself capable of exploiting the tragedy for personal gain, attempting to use the assassination to sidle up to Trudy (in a great piece of acting by Alison Brie she does wobble for a moment, only to firm up suddenly with a "goodbye Peter"). Jolly old Harry Crane meanwhile is a man of the modern age, what with all his TV contacts and his championing of women's rights (see last week, ish). Surely when the pairmeet there will be an exchange of sincerely held platitudes?

Not so. Instead we see them at loggerheads, with the viewer undergoing the bizarre experience of watching Pete Campbell stand up for all that is right and good in the world. Harry is annoyed because the assassination means the rearranging of TV schedules and, as a result, the loss of ad revenue. Pete can't believe that anyone could be so cold-blooded. "It's a shameful, shameful day," he screams, his outrage at the event acting as catharsis for his own wrongdoings. That, in turn, sets Harry off, smoothly eliding an act of murder with the subsequent riots so that each occasions the same sense of outrage and he, like Henry Francis, can reveal his colours with a flourish that sets off an explosive exchange.

Harry: Don't you scream at me. Don't you think I'm upset at that man being shot?

Pete: Only because it's costing you, you pig!

Harry: It's costing all of us and when's it going to stop? No one will be happy until they turn the most beautiful city on Earth into a shit hole.

Pete: Just a minute Bert, did you know we were in the presence of a bonafide racist?

Harry: That's the latest thing, isn't it. Everybody's a racist!

And with that last remark you hear the beginning of the culture wars and the exasperation of every priviliged white male no longer confident of their place in the world. You can bet Harry Crane becomes that racist grandparent. As for Dawn, she comes into work because it's safer than being in her neighbourhood and, also, if she didn't come into work, she couldn't be confident she wouldn't lose her job.

*****

For the second week in a row, a cipher has become a character. The first shot of this episode tells us more about Bobby Draper than we've learned in five seasons. He's a boy so disturbed by the misalignment of his wallpaper that he has to tear it off. Maybe he has OCD, we wonder? Maybe he's an aesthete? Maybe the fracture in the paper symbolises what he's experienced as the child of divorced parents? Maybe he's just a bit bored? Whatever else it is, it's a very clever, intriguing little moment.

Later we see even more. He fakes illness, like his sister and his mother before him. He shows empathy with the black cinema attendant, working on the day after Dr King's death, saying "Everybody likes to go to the movies when they're sad". He is also moved by the destruction wreaked by humans on their own planet in the Planet of the Apes. He even worries for the safety of Henry, a concern that Don is not overly keen to hear and one which he dismisses tartly. No one's going to shoot Henry, Don says. "Henry's not that important."

SWEET AWWWW MOMENTS OF THE WEEK

• Peggy's face when Abe lets slip that he's imagined them having a family together. Abe may be proving to be more conventional than advertised, but many of us are and it obviously touched Peggy's maternal side.

• Ginzo's a virgin! The guy who appears to exist on a diet of pure sarcasm is not only dedicated to his old pa (even to the extent that he sews!) but he's awkward around girls and, within the first fifteen minutes of an arranged date, feels it necessary to reveal to Beverley Faber that he's never

THIS WEEK'S NOTES

• Not entirely sure what the point of the Randall Walsh storyline was, beyond the fact that Roger can make a contact in the most unconventional of situations and acid is buggering up the brains not only of the finest minds of a generation, but the poshest too.

• Megan just can't stand being cooped up in the house. Megan finds it too much to look after the kids. Megan worries that everyone who watches daytime TV hates her. Oh, Megan. Poor you.